973.7L63   Miller,  Frederick  Scott. 
B3M613a 

Abraham  Lincoln,  his 
greatest  quality. 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


Abraham  Cittroln 


CHICAGO 

FRED  S.  MILLER  &  COMPANY 

1  923 


With  malice  toward  none,  and  charity  for  all 


COPY3KSHTCO     1923 
BY    CSeO     S.    MILLER 


L.  (j?  J 

Hitturltt'a  (greatest  (fttalttg 

By   FREDERICK    SCOTT    MILLER 

Amid  the  throes  of  the  great  Civil  War  a  party  of 
clergymen  begged  Lincoln  to  do  something  vastly 
important  enough,  in  their  eyes,  to  warrant  straining 
the  point  of  honesty  and  common  sense.  In  order 
to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  the 
spokesman  of  the  delegation  was  as  dida&ical  and 
loud  as  he  might  have  been  in  his  own  pulpit.  In 
the  midst  of  his  harangue  — "If  you  call  a  sheep's 
tail  a  leg,  how  many  legs  will  it  have?"  Lincoln 
asked  him  mildly. 

The  orator   reined   up   his   eloquence:    "Five!"    he 
shouted  hotly,  exasperated  at  such  interrupting  levity 
on  the  part  of  the  nation's  chief  executive. 
"No,  four,"  corre&ed  Lincoln;    "calling  the  tail  a  leg 
wouldn't  make  it  one." 

His  sense  of  humor  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  greatest 
quality ;  for  humor  is  the  ability  to  juflly  recognize 
values;  which  means  that  you  are  not  to  be  fooled 
or  frighted  in  this  vale  of  illusions  that  continually 
impose  themselves  to  push  us  from  our  stools.  >0 
Raw-head-and-bloody-bones  Superstition,  and  smug 
Conventionality,  and  self-complacent-in-hypocrasy 
Respectability,  shrivel  at  the  touchstone  of  humor; 
and  what  a  relief  and  a  saving  come  from  this  fine 
ability  to  turn  a  robustious  calamity  inside  out  and 
view  the  puppets  dallying! 


It  was  Lincoln's  fate  to  be  surrounded,  at  his  time 
of  greatest  trial,  by  men — able  and  sincere,  who  yet 
lacked  this  quality  to  lift  them  into  greatness.  Hence 
his  towering  superiority.  Amidst  the  tremendous 
responsibilities  pressing  upon  them  all  he  alone  was 
able,  at  a  touch,  to  relieve  the  tensest  situations,  to 
restrain  the  over-zealous  or  quell  the  timidly  cruel: 
all  because  it  reminded  him  of  a  little  story!  After 
hearing  which  they  went  forth  to  their  several  tasks 
chagrined  perhaps,  but  sane  and  smiling. 
Hence  Lincoln's  hold  upon  the  masses.  When  in 
his  great  addresses  he  had  formulated  their  ideas  for 
them  and  made  things  plain,  he  clinched  the  thought 
with  an  instance  marvellously  apt — the  seal  upon  the 
writ.  And  to  fix  an  incident  exadly  to  the  point 
requires  as  high  an  ability  as  that  which  makes  a 
symphony  or  a  poem. 

Such  works  endure;  "for  the  things  which  are  seen 
are  temporal,  but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are 
eternal."  Some  years  have  rolled  away,  and  already 
the  War  of  the  Rebellion  has  dwindled.  The 
thunder  of  its  captains  and  its  shouting  mean  little 
to  our  generation,  dazed  but  now  by  an  uproar  vaft 
and  hideous.  The  issues  of  its  time  are  dead  issues; 
its  heroism  inspires  only  a  duteous  admiration.  But 
Lincoln's  stories  are  fresh  and  virile,  they  lift  and 
light  up,  they  lead  us  out  upon  a  hill. 
And  all  because  they  grip  us  with  the  personality  of 


this  sad  humorist  of  the  Sangamon.  Personality  is 
everything.  John  knew  this  and  wrote  it  down:  The 
Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us.  The 
Gospels  are  the  effulgence  of  the  Man  of  Galilee; 
great  events  are  such  only  in  the  refle&ed  light  of 
great  personalities.  History  is  the  proper  grouping 
of  fads  about  the  lives  of  these  representative  men; 
the  epoch  crystallizes  into  the  epic  when  their  deeds 
are  significantly  sung.  Rightly  taken  their  "lightest 
word*  falls  with  the  authority  of  an  apparition.^ 
Lincoln's  stories  illumine  a  period  when  the  American 
charadter,  racked  and  writhing,  revealed  its  inmost 
soul;  and  by  him  in  fuller  measure  than  by  his 
contemporaries  were  the  issues  of  that  time  recognized 
and  reconciled,  When  the  fissures  opened  and  the 
swirling  masses  ground  and  crashed  on  one  another 
he  held  his  balance  true.  He  was  the  spontaneously 
accredited  representative  of  the  North;  and  he  knew 
the  South,  and  so  he  was  the  South' s  best  friend.^ 
After  Appomattox  he  said  this  to  a  fiery  young 
Republican:  "Harlan  was  up  here  yesterday  and  he 
made  a  speech.  He  got  the  crowd  pretty  well 
warmed  up,  and  then  he  shouted  l  Now  what' 11  we 
do  with  the  rebels?1  ! Hang 'em!'  yelled  someone; 
but  my  little  son  Tad  was  there,  and  he  piped  out 
quick  'No,  hang  onto  'em!'  That  brought  down 
the  house ;  and  I  say  to  you,  young  man,  we'll  just 
have  to  hang  onto  'em!n 


Lincoln  was  called  Our  Martyr  President,  but  that 
was  a  fool  phrase,  the  blind  and  haSty  outcry  of 
men  Startled  out  of  their  self-possession  and  frightened 
to  revenge.  It  was  applied,  as  well,  to  Garfield  and 
McKinley;  and  for  a  little  moment  it  served  to  set 
the  three  in  equal  rank  before  the  minds  of  their 
countrymen.  Such  is  the  power  of  a  phrase,  and 
such  may  be  the  insane  consequence  of  the  inability 
to  properly  recognize  values.  A&ion  is  equal  to 
rea&ion:  the  assassin  and  the  community  he  outrages 
are  alike  sublimely  ridiculous. 

Booth  yelled  Sic  semper  tyrannis!  but  he  should 
have  cried,  like  Pilate,  ^cce  homo!  Behold  the 
man  — THE  MAN  REPRESENTATIVE —  embodier 
and  suStainer  of  a  priceless  hope  and  faith  of  other 
men,  in  his  portentous  passing!  Lincoln's  place  is 
with  the  Saviours  of  the  world;  not  among  the 
sincere  who  died  from  blind  prejudice  or  insane 
caprice.  The  signs  proclaimed  him;  wrhat  was  dim 
descried  has  been  made  plain.  North  and  South 
Stood  Still  and  gazed  on  one  another  at  the  sound 
of  the  pistol  shot  —for  the  veil  between  them  had 
been  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom!  J0 
But,  more  than  his  death,  Lincoln's  own  utterances 
proclaim  his  Station  and  degree;  for  all  his  great 
addresses  may  be  resolved  into  the  Wonderful 
Words :    I  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill  £ 


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